[Applause]
so let me give it up to this sister who
how many of you have somebody in your
life or know people that as soon as they
get up in the morning and then I don’t
know 12 14 16 hours later are still
going how many of you that’s his sister
were you like I didn’t I’m not doing
enough with my life so thank you so I
want to talk about your work is that
cool that’s wonderful I’m excited it’s
been nice to get to know you
thank you I knew to thank your sister so
we’re actually not gonna talk about your
exhibit but I think everybody should go
and see the work in that exhibit because
what you did and for all of us is that
Latoya Ruby Frazier was inspired by you
she had you on her mind for two years
right to do this work but I want to go
back a little bit in time and talk about
what you were doing in jail yeah I was
in the Allegheny County Jail for five
years and that came about because I went
to a community meeting in Homewood and
Homewood is a neighborhood in the city
of Pittsburgh it’s about five miles east
of the city center it’s a low-income
predominantly black neighborhood that in
the 1990s became gang infested with
related violence and crime and that I
had always admired the work of authors
like Wally Liam and Sonia Sanchez and
others who went into the prisons and
taught creative writing so when I went
to this community meeting and the
community was saying we need jobs we
need safety we need police protection
we need income opportunity
a young man who was about 25 I’d say
stood up and said I can’t get a job it’s
25 I’m a convicted felon and anytime I
go to look for a job I have to check
that box on the employment application
my opportunities go away and I thought
to myself but if you are self-employed
you wouldn’t have to check a box and
many writers are self-employed
freelancers so I says okay I’m going to
go down and see if I can teach creative
writing at the Allegheny County Jail
yeah this isn’t an image of the bridge
that goes from the Allegheny County
Courthouse to where the jail the
building where people have been housed
in the jail for a century and my thought
was flip this photograph and instead of
going down into the jail how about
taking the people who’ve been convicted
and going up you know offering
opportunities to improve to to have
better lives to serve their time for
whatever crimes that they did but when
they come out what kind of people are
they going to be so you know you have to
make me a believer about perhaps others
how many of you think that the creative
arts can help reduce recidivism people
returning back to prison just raise your
hand all right
there are a lot of moles that you
planted in this class
so tell me what its what’s resonating in
the community why do you think the
creative arts can do that what they
found is that when people who are
incarcerated have arts programs
available to them and especially
creative writing they have to empathize
and many people haven’t done that they
committed the crimes they’ve stolen they
probably whatever they’ve done because
they weren’t really feeling for the
other people but when you write a story
and that characters are going to come
true
you’ve got to step into those other
characters and understand what’s what
they’re like which is an aspect of
penance which is the root of the word
penitentiary is that you understand what
other people are going through and what
you have done to them what you could do
to them so as a result the state of
California has done the research as have
other states and found that over
seven-year period people who committed
who were released from jail did not come
back and the rate of recidivism where
people do come back got lower and lower
the longer these people were out so in
the land of the free we have one of the
largest population of prisoners in the
world yeah and not just looking at that
number but you also talk about this idea
about the collateral damage of
incarceration can you say more about
that right this picture says it all it’s
a not just that a man or a woman goes to
jail or prison their children their
families even the community is affected
and although we might think while the
community is better off with them locked
up the community also suffers a loss the
family suffers a loss and what they
found
is the children of people who’ve been
incarcerated have a higher likelihood of
becoming offenders as an adult than the
regular population
what kind of genres of writing did you
have in prison because I I see in you
know some of the slides that are some
makeup or maîtrise so you did some work
in Westinghouse High School you talked
about some of these personal what kind
of work did you do I know you were
talking about some of the works of the
pieces that you wrote yeah or not just
you wrote with the community of writers
right but when I went in and bamm-bamm
let me end my goal is to teach poetry
fiction and say a memoir and by learning
the rules conforming to the rules
required of writing according to those
different styles their reward would be
that they would be published and the
very first book that we did when I first
went to the jail I refused to work with
the men I’d seen several documentaries
and scared the daylights out of me
around so and then I get in there and
the guys are all over the place walking
through the halls and everything smiling
how you doing miss I knew some of them
so one guy came in my class one day and
said I know where you live
you’re across the street from my cousin
yeah so um so in this class with the
ladies they were always willing but one
day after I’ve been teaching the class
for about four weeks they came in and
they all came in down slumped he says
what’s going on and they said miss
Sandra I was gonna want to read anything
we have to write and so we had to have a
conversation first was to get over this
concept that when you write it’s going
to be right the first time you write it
so we had to clear up the notion that
everybody’s first draft is crappy Toni
Morrison no ever you know it’s crappy
the second was the concept that have you
ever heard that a diamond is just a
chunk of coal that made good under
pressure and so as they’re sitting there
thinking of themselves perhaps as chunks
of coal I says yeah but under pressure
that coal can become a diamond and one
of the lady says you know what miss
Sandra
we’re diamonds in the rough that’s gonna
be the name of our book and everything
sales from then on we once I started
working with the guys you know they had
to meet strict requirements they would
not be published just because they were
in the class we’ve all had experiences
like that in high school
no there were you had to write polish
edit proofread we handled it just as
though they were going to submit that
work to The New Yorker or the Missouri
review or the Atlantic they earned their
right to be in there which also was
stimulating part of this involves the
fact of what happened
when people are intellectually
stimulated which was one of the amazing
things I found with when I was started
working with incarcerated populations
the first time was with young men who
were juveniles who were sentenced to the
Abraxas Academy in lieu of being sent to
a corrections Detention Center and not
going there with these young criminals
and they’re marvelous they’re marvelous
I was teaching them photography and they
were so eager to do the creative
problem-solving saying let’s figure out
how we light this let’s figure out how
we work with this chemistry let’s figure
out how we exposed these cameras and
that’s when I first realized it’s the
intellectual stimulation it’s the
creative problem-solving positively
applied that makes a difference then I
went on to Westinghouse which was in
chaos at that time Westinghouse High
School in Homewood at least one student
in my class was a gang member I knew he
was and he was a leader he was
belligerent
he was tough but when I gave the class a
word game challenge boggle he passed out
dictionaries and says we’re gonna do
this it was the intellectual challenge
the intellectual stimulation of the same
thing happened here and everybody
listened to him when he said go get
boggle yes oh yes a new superpower so if
I want to finish this sentence as we
kind of bring this to a close and then
also connect this work to how this has
manifested in the future with some of
your students but if someone were to say
why should my tax dollars go to pay for
a criminal’s creative writing process or
creative arts you would say because it
makes the world a better place and a
safer place the very reason you want
these people in prison is so that
society is safer but 95% of the people
who go to prisons will be released one
day
and how do we want them to come out
bitter angry criminal behavior
reinforced by associations or do we want
these people to come out with a sense of
purpose and hope and maybe there’s
something I can do their humanity has
been maintained through empathy in the
process of penance so what do we want
our prisons to do and our jails to do
what do we want them to build bridges to
and here you have examples of how some
of my students felt about the
opportunities that they have
thank you sister thank you for your work
[Music]
might we all be part of a lineage right
we all are a part of a lineage of
sharing our work and what does that mean
and you did this work five or six years
ago yes I at the end of I did I was in
the jail from 2004 to 2010 at that point
I gifted the program to Chatham
University they were looking for an
opportunity to get into Corrections I
was leaving I had promised to go I
promised to go to jail for five years
they let me keep coming back coming back
for five years
Chatham has taken up the program their
graduate writing program under Cheryl
st. Germain has taken this up carried it
forward and are doing a wonderful job
and I hope that other others continue to
do the same as inspired in the beginning
by people like Wally Lamb and Sonia
Sanchez and the other great writers
beautiful so there is a lineage holder
here of this work and that is Eric Boyd
so I’m gonna step off the stage okay and
why don’t you bring that brother forward
to share his word gladly all right in
fact Eric’s signature is on here the
thank you for everything and Eric was
one of my students and I’m endlessly
proud of him as a talent and and what
he’s doing with his work and this is the
real treat
thank you
[Music]
before I get started two things one I
know you gave her two rounds of applause
hear me 1/2 a woman you gave her one and
a half rounds of applause I I wouldn’t
be here tonight
whether on this stage or possibly in
this situation at all
if it weren’t for this woman so I’d
really like another round of
[Music]
and Eric Eric made it all worthwhile
thank you today I’m going to share a
well a truncated version of an excerpt
of a novel that I’m starting so in the
scheme of things that’s you know a drop
but if any of you like the truncated
version of the excerpt but there are
full versions of that excerpt under your
chairs if you haven’t seen them already
and thank you to CDI printing for making
them aka my mother who works there thank
you mom
[Applause]
[Music]
the red bridge motel I’m in a motel and
Kansas City taking a shower which I’ve
barely done since I started train
hopping the manager I’ve been
suspiciously but his idea of a single
girl checking into a room is probably
she’s somebody’s mistress or worse but
still that’s better insane
hi I’m Farah I’m basically a hobo and
I’m getting a room to meet another girl
tonight in the shower the water is so
hot that the last few hundred miles melt
off of me I sent in the tub tuck my
knees up and rest my head letting the
water run down my back I hope audrey
comes but she probably won’t
I started train hopping to save money
for school I’d lost my job and heard a
tip from some crust punk about picking
weed in the West Coast in the summer I
had just enough money for some decent
boots to get started and bent
panhandling until I reached California I
began taking photos on my phone post him
through Wi-Fi to a blog I started about
the road a few people liked my posts now
and then not many but Audrey was one of
them she messaged me one day not
pressing for any crazy details and while
I was doing all this mostly we just
talked about movies she’d never seen The
Children’s Hour which was like
unbelievable to me because it was this
classic film starring Audrey Hepburn one
of one of the first lesbian films that
anyone admitted was about that and my
Audrey was just as shocked I’d never
seen Thelma and Louise but I mean Audrey
was jealous of me for being out her dad
was a bible-thumper who thought his
daughter never had boyfriend because she
because she was chaste I was jealous
that Audrey has gained an arts degree in
Missouri a state that I could actually
stop him pretty easily on my
California the closest I could get to
her was a BNSF line a few miles from the
Red Birds motel she agreed to meet me
here tonight but as the shower gets
lukewarm I’m not holding out hope I get
out and dry off checking my phone sure
enough she texts my dad saw her messages
he just thinks I’m talking to a stranger
he doesn’t know but he’s still freaking
out maybe tomorrow
like I said I’m not holding out hope I
told her I was gonna stay the weekend
already and of course I lied saying that
was just for me to rest not to see her
but I go to bed ready to leave bye check
out the metal telephone next to the bed
rings early in the morning the manager
says there’s a package for me at the
front desk he gives me the stink-eye and
hands me a box from Amazon in white
letters on a blue label it says same-day
shipping
I go into the room and open it up it’s a
DVD of Thelma and Louise with a gift
note on the packing slip I read that
then jump into the shower again this
time to get ready
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you so much Eric it was beautiful who
here your work and I know it was an
honor to have the both of you on our
stage so thank you so much more time
[Applause]
[Music]
so let me give it up to this sister who
how many of you have somebody in your
life or know people that as soon as they
get up in the morning and then I don’t
know 12 14 16 hours later are still
going how many of you that’s his sister
were you like I didn’t I’m not doing
enough with my life so thank you so I
want to talk about your work is that
cool that’s wonderful I’m excited it’s
been nice to get to know you
thank you I knew to thank your sister so
we’re actually not gonna talk about your
exhibit but I think everybody should go
and see the work in that exhibit because
what you did and for all of us is that
Latoya Ruby Frazier was inspired by you
she had you on her mind for two years
right to do this work but I want to go
back a little bit in time and talk about
what you were doing in jail yeah I was
in the Allegheny County Jail for five
years and that came about because I went
to a community meeting in Homewood and
Homewood is a neighborhood in the city
of Pittsburgh it’s about five miles east
of the city center it’s a low-income
predominantly black neighborhood that in
the 1990s became gang infested with
related violence and crime and that I
had always admired the work of authors
like Wally Liam and Sonia Sanchez and
others who went into the prisons and
taught creative writing so when I went
to this community meeting and the
community was saying we need jobs we
need safety we need police protection
we need income opportunity
a young man who was about 25 I’d say
stood up and said I can’t get a job it’s
25 I’m a convicted felon and anytime I
go to look for a job I have to check
that box on the employment application
my opportunities go away and I thought
to myself but if you are self-employed
you wouldn’t have to check a box and
many writers are self-employed
freelancers so I says okay I’m going to
go down and see if I can teach creative
writing at the Allegheny County Jail
yeah this isn’t an image of the bridge
that goes from the Allegheny County
Courthouse to where the jail the
building where people have been housed
in the jail for a century and my thought
was flip this photograph and instead of
going down into the jail how about
taking the people who’ve been convicted
and going up you know offering
opportunities to improve to to have
better lives to serve their time for
whatever crimes that they did but when
they come out what kind of people are
they going to be so you know you have to
make me a believer about perhaps others
how many of you think that the creative
arts can help reduce recidivism people
returning back to prison just raise your
hand all right
there are a lot of moles that you
planted in this class
so tell me what its what’s resonating in
the community why do you think the
creative arts can do that what they
found is that when people who are
incarcerated have arts programs
available to them and especially
creative writing they have to empathize
and many people haven’t done that they
committed the crimes they’ve stolen they
probably whatever they’ve done because
they weren’t really feeling for the
other people but when you write a story
and that characters are going to come
true
you’ve got to step into those other
characters and understand what’s what
they’re like which is an aspect of
penance which is the root of the word
penitentiary is that you understand what
other people are going through and what
you have done to them what you could do
to them so as a result the state of
California has done the research as have
other states and found that over
seven-year period people who committed
who were released from jail did not come
back and the rate of recidivism where
people do come back got lower and lower
the longer these people were out so in
the land of the free we have one of the
largest population of prisoners in the
world yeah and not just looking at that
number but you also talk about this idea
about the collateral damage of
incarceration can you say more about
that right this picture says it all it’s
a not just that a man or a woman goes to
jail or prison their children their
families even the community is affected
and although we might think while the
community is better off with them locked
up the community also suffers a loss the
family suffers a loss and what they
found
is the children of people who’ve been
incarcerated have a higher likelihood of
becoming offenders as an adult than the
regular population
what kind of genres of writing did you
have in prison because I I see in you
know some of the slides that are some
makeup or maîtrise so you did some work
in Westinghouse High School you talked
about some of these personal what kind
of work did you do I know you were
talking about some of the works of the
pieces that you wrote yeah or not just
you wrote with the community of writers
right but when I went in and bamm-bamm
let me end my goal is to teach poetry
fiction and say a memoir and by learning
the rules conforming to the rules
required of writing according to those
different styles their reward would be
that they would be published and the
very first book that we did when I first
went to the jail I refused to work with
the men I’d seen several documentaries
and scared the daylights out of me
around so and then I get in there and
the guys are all over the place walking
through the halls and everything smiling
how you doing miss I knew some of them
so one guy came in my class one day and
said I know where you live
you’re across the street from my cousin
yeah so um so in this class with the
ladies they were always willing but one
day after I’ve been teaching the class
for about four weeks they came in and
they all came in down slumped he says
what’s going on and they said miss
Sandra I was gonna want to read anything
we have to write and so we had to have a
conversation first was to get over this
concept that when you write it’s going
to be right the first time you write it
so we had to clear up the notion that
everybody’s first draft is crappy Toni
Morrison no ever you know it’s crappy
the second was the concept that have you
ever heard that a diamond is just a
chunk of coal that made good under
pressure and so as they’re sitting there
thinking of themselves perhaps as chunks
of coal I says yeah but under pressure
that coal can become a diamond and one
of the lady says you know what miss
Sandra
we’re diamonds in the rough that’s gonna
be the name of our book and everything
sales from then on we once I started
working with the guys you know they had
to meet strict requirements they would
not be published just because they were
in the class we’ve all had experiences
like that in high school
no there were you had to write polish
edit proofread we handled it just as
though they were going to submit that
work to The New Yorker or the Missouri
review or the Atlantic they earned their
right to be in there which also was
stimulating part of this involves the
fact of what happened
when people are intellectually
stimulated which was one of the amazing
things I found with when I was started
working with incarcerated populations
the first time was with young men who
were juveniles who were sentenced to the
Abraxas Academy in lieu of being sent to
a corrections Detention Center and not
going there with these young criminals
and they’re marvelous they’re marvelous
I was teaching them photography and they
were so eager to do the creative
problem-solving saying let’s figure out
how we light this let’s figure out how
we work with this chemistry let’s figure
out how we exposed these cameras and
that’s when I first realized it’s the
intellectual stimulation it’s the
creative problem-solving positively
applied that makes a difference then I
went on to Westinghouse which was in
chaos at that time Westinghouse High
School in Homewood at least one student
in my class was a gang member I knew he
was and he was a leader he was
belligerent
he was tough but when I gave the class a
word game challenge boggle he passed out
dictionaries and says we’re gonna do
this it was the intellectual challenge
the intellectual stimulation of the same
thing happened here and everybody
listened to him when he said go get
boggle yes oh yes a new superpower so if
I want to finish this sentence as we
kind of bring this to a close and then
also connect this work to how this has
manifested in the future with some of
your students but if someone were to say
why should my tax dollars go to pay for
a criminal’s creative writing process or
creative arts you would say because it
makes the world a better place and a
safer place the very reason you want
these people in prison is so that
society is safer but 95% of the people
who go to prisons will be released one
day
and how do we want them to come out
bitter angry criminal behavior
reinforced by associations or do we want
these people to come out with a sense of
purpose and hope and maybe there’s
something I can do their humanity has
been maintained through empathy in the
process of penance so what do we want
our prisons to do and our jails to do
what do we want them to build bridges to
and here you have examples of how some
of my students felt about the
opportunities that they have
thank you sister thank you for your work
[Music]
might we all be part of a lineage right
we all are a part of a lineage of
sharing our work and what does that mean
and you did this work five or six years
ago yes I at the end of I did I was in
the jail from 2004 to 2010 at that point
I gifted the program to Chatham
University they were looking for an
opportunity to get into Corrections I
was leaving I had promised to go I
promised to go to jail for five years
they let me keep coming back coming back
for five years
Chatham has taken up the program their
graduate writing program under Cheryl
st. Germain has taken this up carried it
forward and are doing a wonderful job
and I hope that other others continue to
do the same as inspired in the beginning
by people like Wally Lamb and Sonia
Sanchez and the other great writers
beautiful so there is a lineage holder
here of this work and that is Eric Boyd
so I’m gonna step off the stage okay and
why don’t you bring that brother forward
to share his word gladly all right in
fact Eric’s signature is on here the
thank you for everything and Eric was
one of my students and I’m endlessly
proud of him as a talent and and what
he’s doing with his work and this is the
real treat
thank you
[Music]
before I get started two things one I
know you gave her two rounds of applause
hear me 1/2 a woman you gave her one and
a half rounds of applause I I wouldn’t
be here tonight
whether on this stage or possibly in
this situation at all
if it weren’t for this woman so I’d
really like another round of
[Music]
and Eric Eric made it all worthwhile
thank you today I’m going to share a
well a truncated version of an excerpt
of a novel that I’m starting so in the
scheme of things that’s you know a drop
but if any of you like the truncated
version of the excerpt but there are
full versions of that excerpt under your
chairs if you haven’t seen them already
and thank you to CDI printing for making
them aka my mother who works there thank
you mom
[Applause]
[Music]
the red bridge motel I’m in a motel and
Kansas City taking a shower which I’ve
barely done since I started train
hopping the manager I’ve been
suspiciously but his idea of a single
girl checking into a room is probably
she’s somebody’s mistress or worse but
still that’s better insane
hi I’m Farah I’m basically a hobo and
I’m getting a room to meet another girl
tonight in the shower the water is so
hot that the last few hundred miles melt
off of me I sent in the tub tuck my
knees up and rest my head letting the
water run down my back I hope audrey
comes but she probably won’t
I started train hopping to save money
for school I’d lost my job and heard a
tip from some crust punk about picking
weed in the West Coast in the summer I
had just enough money for some decent
boots to get started and bent
panhandling until I reached California I
began taking photos on my phone post him
through Wi-Fi to a blog I started about
the road a few people liked my posts now
and then not many but Audrey was one of
them she messaged me one day not
pressing for any crazy details and while
I was doing all this mostly we just
talked about movies she’d never seen The
Children’s Hour which was like
unbelievable to me because it was this
classic film starring Audrey Hepburn one
of one of the first lesbian films that
anyone admitted was about that and my
Audrey was just as shocked I’d never
seen Thelma and Louise but I mean Audrey
was jealous of me for being out her dad
was a bible-thumper who thought his
daughter never had boyfriend because she
because she was chaste I was jealous
that Audrey has gained an arts degree in
Missouri a state that I could actually
stop him pretty easily on my
California the closest I could get to
her was a BNSF line a few miles from the
Red Birds motel she agreed to meet me
here tonight but as the shower gets
lukewarm I’m not holding out hope I get
out and dry off checking my phone sure
enough she texts my dad saw her messages
he just thinks I’m talking to a stranger
he doesn’t know but he’s still freaking
out maybe tomorrow
like I said I’m not holding out hope I
told her I was gonna stay the weekend
already and of course I lied saying that
was just for me to rest not to see her
but I go to bed ready to leave bye check
out the metal telephone next to the bed
rings early in the morning the manager
says there’s a package for me at the
front desk he gives me the stink-eye and
hands me a box from Amazon in white
letters on a blue label it says same-day
shipping
I go into the room and open it up it’s a
DVD of Thelma and Louise with a gift
note on the packing slip I read that
then jump into the shower again this
time to get ready
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you so much Eric it was beautiful who
here your work and I know it was an
honor to have the both of you on our
stage so thank you so much more time
[Applause]
[Music]
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